Life on Debbie Drive

Sometimes, when I read over my own blog, I cringe. I cringe because the Little Red Pen who lives inside of me wants to leap out and bleed all over my own musings. Now, one would think that that a meandering motor mouth’s writing style would be replete with long, run- on sentences, spliced with repeated commas to allow the fingers a breath or two.

But that’s not the problem. In this little glorified journal, I tend to write the way that I speak. And I don’t speak in run–ons; I speak in fragments. OK... technically fragments which tend to run on, but I digress...

If a former student happened upon this blog, he would be shocked and indignant at the permission I have given myself that I never gave my class. When my students wrote a paper, part of the editing process included squaring off every AND, BUT, OR, NOR, or FOR and making sure that they had punctuated the surrounding sentences correctly. Never, under any circumstance, were those offending conjunctions allowed to reside at the beginning of a sentence. I will spare you the related grammarbabble.

Whether or not it is sound syntax, it is the way that I speak. In my little world, periods of silence, whether long or short, are most often interrupted by AND, BUT, OR, or SO. Folks are rarely privy to what transpires before those connecting words -- I’ve had that part of the conversation with the Little Debbie who lives inside my head. Can anyone relate?

Too often, when the man and I are walking, he’ll stop and stand stock still - head cocked, eyebrow raised, a big smirk splattered across his face. I’ll know that I have been caught, once again, having a private conversation with Little Debbie.

Which he did not follow…
Because he’s a man…
And verbal fragmentation is a female thing.

One of the best things about having a sister (whether by blood or heart) is that she instinctively knows your silent head speak. She can meet your motor mouth at conjunction junction and ride down Debbie Drive without skipping a beat. Depending on her closeness, she also knows exactly HOW Little Debbie made the mental quantum leap from general conversation to this new, disconnected thought.

That’s why, when we gather with other couples to play games like Taboo or Pictionary, the husbands always protest if we want to play MALE vs. FEMALE. They can’t win. We get to share a brain. They don’t.

See? I just took a detour to game night with the boys.
And all the girls followed it completely, didn’t you?

So I make my apologies to the other grammar mavens out there. I’m a red penner too. It would drive me crazy, but I’m going continue to write that way. I shall call it literary license.

After all, what is a BLOG anyway but a random collection of life fragments? Surely, there is more to my life than Polish Tupperware and Princess Diaries. Those were merely the fragments I chose to share, albeit in my very fragmented way.

By the way, I actually drove out in the rain to snap that picture to decorate this post. The husband even rode with me. Apparently, he's pleased with the increased amount of quiet  around the home since I found a place for some of my words to light. He thanks you.